The Mind Adds the Colour
We all hear the same music, but beauty is an additional sensation that mixes into it. You don't just like a song. You like liking, and right now that liking is mixed with this song.
Whatever you think you like or dislike, you don't actually like or dislike those things.
The reason I'm saying this is because there's something additional happening. The correct phrase wouldn't be, "I like this." The correct phrase would be, "I like liking," and right now that liking is being mixed with a certain thing.
The same music
For example, if I say I really like a particular piece of music, let's say it's Mozart or Beethoven, the music I'm hearing is the same as everyone else hears, including people who don't really like or appreciate that music. It doesn't mean what they're hearing is somehow different from what I'm hearing.
We are all hearing the same external, objective music. But why does it appear beautiful to me and not to someone else? Beauty is not just an abstract concept. I would argue that it's an additional sensation. When I'm hearing the music, that sensation of beauty combines with it to create a new kind of sensation. It is still that music, but a slightly different variation of it.
Mixing colours
It's like mixing blue with white to make light blue. So, technically, when I say that we are both hearing the same music, that isn't entirely true either. The music is being mixed so well with other emotions or abstract concepts that it shifts slightly. The actual music is still there, but it's a different variation.
This is not just about beauty. It's also about the things you hate and the things you love. But the story doesn't end there. There is a structure to it. That's why we don't find everything beautiful. However, which variables make this experience come together, and decide for us where we can find happiness, love and beauty, and in which patterns, is still a mystery that we need to explore more deeply.
Why people are so different
This helps us imagine why people are so different. When you see someone loving something you would judge, try to realise that, for them, it is a source of the same feeling you crave or enjoy. In all the structured variables you love, the kind of music you love, the kind of food you love, another person might be enjoying the same experience in something totally different.
Beauty as its own thing
We are all driven toward these experiences. It is also a useful exercise to imagine beauty as a feeling in itself: not saying that something is beautiful, but realising that beauty is its own thing. Meditate on exactly where that experience is, how it mixes with the experience you find beautiful, and then try to imagine that particular experience within the variables where you usually don't find beauty.
You can meditate on this and play with it, but be careful, because you are playing with foundational structures that guide you through reality. I would suggest going only as far as trying to understand other people's perspectives. That's it.